PQL Designs provides customer access to PQL’s extensive expertise in specialist vacuum sputtering systems design, build and operation that has underpinned the development of PQL’s proprietary “HiTUS” remote plasma sputtering technology. 

 

The demands and opportunities inherent in the HiTUS sputtering technology, coupled with the build and repeated upgrades of systems for both customer and in-house use, have resulted in the PQL Design team having uniquely wide experience in robust and effective custom engineering for the thin film coating R&D and sputtering community.

 

Whilst our offerings are still based on supporting the “HiTUS” sputtering technology, our products are suitable for the thin film coating market as a whole and we are pleased to now be able to offer design and build services in vacuum engineering systems and components separately to that wider audience. 

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PQL Designs are able to offer design and build services for thin film coaters using either industry standard magnetron sputtering sources or traditional planar “diode” sputtering sources, the latter in conjunction with our in-house developed “HiTUS” high density remote plasma source technology to raise their performance to at least that of magnetron sputtering systems.

 

The combination of the PQL plasma source and planar diode sputtering sources results in continuous full target surface sputtering with very high target current densities and without the need for high bias voltage (typically HiTUS sourced sputter targets are operated between -150 and -1000V, DC or RF powered). This leads to many significant performance advantages, e.g.

• Deposition rates comparable to or greater than equivalently sized magnetron sputtering sources

• Stable reactive sputtering deposition processes for dielectrics, with deposition rates exceeding the rate of the sputtered element alone, no requirement for reactive gas feedback control

• Fast target ‘burn in’ – essentially only seconds to remove usual light surface contamination in load-lock systems, a few minutes in systems vented to atmosphere

• Uniform erosion, eliminating issues associated with magnetron sputtering “racetrack” formation and simplifying / enabling use of mixed material sputtering targets

 

Additionally, the more extensive high density plasma provided by the PQL remote source can be controlled to benefit the thin film deposition process and provide improved coatings for a very wide range of element and compound thin films. Benefits include:

• Low film stress (usually process adjustable)

• Excellent adhesion, often negating the need for “tie-layers”

• Excellent physical properties in general, for both passive and active thin film layers and structures

Highly densified films - little or no plasma gas inclusion

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